


You Are Cordially Invited...

by Glowbug, NotQuiteHydePark



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Bakery, Castles, Cupcakes, Ireland, M/M, Same-Sex Marriage, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-29 12:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19019929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowbug/pseuds/Glowbug, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: Two former (or are they?) X-villains make it official. What could go wrong?





	1. Chapter 1

Westport’s not really remote anymore, not with the rail line that goes all the way to Dublin, not with all the tourists. And since it’s a planned town, one of the few in Ireland, it’s long been easy to find your way around the place. 

So Cain, who’s not been there in years—Tom only visits a few times a year, after all-- has no trouble finding Clancy and Daughters bakery, and no trouble imagining how it stays in business. (How much cash in the till? he wonders, and hates himself a little for wondering. Old habits.) But of course he’s here to pay for every cake and cupcake he ordered last week. It’s not going to be all that big of a wedding, he thinks. But some of the people there will have appetites.

There’s no one behind the counter. “Hello?” Cain says.“I’m here to pick up one wedding cake and three boxes of cupcakes? We put in an order on line.” He pauses. “Under Marko. Cain Marko.”

He can’t help his deep voice: he bellows. Nor can he help the physical space he takes up, there in front of the narrow glass case. He barely fits into the shop. There’s a wedding cake on display, but definitely not the one he pre-ordered; it’s a generic sort, with pale frills and a bride. The frosting looks real, but the cake itself might be…. not. There’s a bit of dust around the bottom edge.

A young-looking man with floppy red hair pokes his head out of the kitchen, starts to greet Cain, does a double take, ducks back into the kitchen. Cain drums his enormous fingers on the counter, careful not to break the glass.

A few minutes later the sirens start. “Cheezus, not this,” Cain says. But he’s used to it now. In America, if not here.

When the uniformed gardaí show up—five at once, in their short-sleeved summer uniforms, one of them holding a gleaming high-tech weapon—they look like they’re honestly not sure what to do. They just stand there. “Cain Marko?” one of them says. 

Cain shrugs, then answers. “That’s me. I’m just here fer our cake. We’re tying the knot at last at the keep tomorrow.”

“What keep?” asks one of the cops. Garda, Cain corrects himself. Can’t think of them as cops, like I did in America, or I’ll be seeing them as the enemy. That’s in the past. I’m a good guy now. My fiancé and I live in New York and Dublin and sometimes here at the family keep out west by sea. And they’re not cops. They’re gardaí.

“Cassidy Keep. My husband’s family place,” Cain says. “Well, my husband to be. As of tomorrow.”

“Aye.” The garda strolls into the back of the store. The Crimson Jewel of Cyttorak gives plenty of powers, even when you fight against it, but super-hearing, Cain thinks, ain’t one of them. Still, he can make out bits of conversation.

“Recognized international criminal,” one voice says. “Have to do something. Can’t let our town harbor….” Then: “Scared, honestly, scared.”

There’s another voice, higher. That might be the garda’s. “European Convention on Human…. Article 21… Non-discrimination,” she says. “Commercial services.” And "Reformed now, anyway... used to... Excalibur... remember them?"

The floppy-haired man comes out with the right wedding cake. Tier after tier. Five tiers. Tan on mocha on dark chocolate, shining almost like Cain’s armor used to shine, with gold coins all over the place, and golden flourishes: gold pearls, golden bows. The baker returns to the back, then wheels out a cart: three boxes of cupcakes. Each red as the sunset. Red as a full-blown rose.

There’s a sort of candy semicircle on the top, dark brown and gleaming, and a red, round hard candy, like a garnet. Next to this assembly there’s a wooden branch with a tiny leaf coming out of it, in marzipan. And a candy top hat.

“I didn’t know who ye were when I took yer order,” the baker says. Maybe he’s an assistant baker. “But I’m, uh, happy to serve ye.” The baker looks at the garda, not at Cain.

Then he refuses to take Cain’s bundle of euros. “The cake’s yours,” he says. “In…. uh, in recognition of all yr man has done for us.” Tom has supported a raft of local charities, even though he hasn’t lived here much. But the look in the baker’s eyes isn’t gratitude: it’s fear. Will it always be fear?

Granted, the handful of bills in Cain’s hand likely came from a bank heist ten years ago. But still. He’s reformed, he has.

He lifts all four boxes up carefully, elevating them so they stay level with his impossibly broad shoulders, as he walks back to his reinforced Jeep. The gardai give Cain a very wide birth. “Be seein’ ya at the wedding tomorrow?” Cain asks quietly. No one says anything back.

At least the wedding will be sunny. The wedding guests will make sure of that.


	2. Chapter 2

Some gigs you take to support the community. Some you take because you know there will be energy. Some come as part of a long tour when you’re on a long tour, the dull stones between all the bright ones. And some—well, some gigs you take because someone’s got money, some rich dude old enough to remember your first and last international radio hit has decided to pay for a command performance. Alison remembers sorting the past twenty years of gigs into one or another category in her head as she made her way down escalators at Shannon. She’d be using borrowed equipment, too. No sense getting stopped by Customs on suspicion of being a touring rock musician. She and her band got enough of that nonsense crossing between the United States and Canada, and these days it had only got worse.

Fortunately—as promised—Black Tom sent a black car, with a driver in black uniform. (The car had a hood ornament made of wood. Weird. Also a wooden GPS?) It’s a two-hour drive up the M18 through Ennis and Kinvarra, then out to the coast, and Alison naps for most of the way. 

She dreams she’s at the Glastonbury Festival, singing duets with Cautious Clay, with Shamir, with Angel Haze on a slow number, then watching Emily Haines cover one of her 1990s comeback songs. She is not terribly happy to wake up. 

“Are you ready for the soundcheck, ma’am?” says somebody with an undercut, black T-shirt, black jeans and a handful of patch cords. The wind off the Atlantic is already blowing her hair back into her face. “I’m ready, but I’d really love”—they won’t have kombucha here, that’s hardly Black Tom’s scene, he’s a good deal older than she is—“a cup of tea?”

“That we can do,” the person in black says, and pulls a cell phone out of their hip pocket. “Alison’s here, BT.” The person motions to Alison’s massive backpack, the only luggage she needs these days, and she shakes her head. She’s had too much merch stolen out of vans.

The sea air’s refreshing, sure, but she’s still tired: what made her decide to perform on the same day she flew? why did she have to fly commercial? (Money. And money, she thinks. Also the money.) And of course she needs somewhere to get changed.

Two hours, two cups of tea, one change of outfit and one ten-minute nap later she’s soundchecked, she knows where the monitors are, she’s got her DATs ready, the local kids who know her easier songs (and who drove up from Galway to do this) are ready with bass guitar and stand-up drums, and the guests have begun to arrive. Black Tom is shushing her, asking her to hide behind the blackout curtains, practically wrapping her up in them. Her presence is supposed to be a surprise.

So much so that she agreed not to tell any of her friends, or former friends, or semi-friends, she was coming. After what went down in Westchester, neither Piotr nor Kitty would be there. She’d love another chance to hang with Jennifer, but the chance that she’d be invited to this particular shindig was nil. Looking out over the battlements and terrances onto the lawn inside the keep—the keep with its back to the fierce County Mayo sea—Alison could see Terry and Moira and Jamie, Kurt and… not Rachel… Amanda?.... Stephen and Clea… Was that Professor X? (Was he even alive? With X-Men you never know.)

And there’s Cain, smiling, lumbering into the front row. Normally you’d have the entertainment after the ceremony, of course, but for this one Black Tom, who arranged it all, didn’t want to spoil the surprise. So: concert first, and then the vows.

Black Tom arrives with his shillelagh, his woolen blazer for the Irish weather, his boots, his salty mustache. “Welcome to all our guest from far and near!” he says. “Cain and I have long awaited this lucky and cherished day. We have a ceremony and cakes and ale for you tonight, but first, before the light fails, we have a very special international performer, one who’s literally above the rest!”

The stage starts to move. All the planks are levitating, taking the drummer, the bassist, the patch cord, Alison herself with them. Are they being kidnapped for ransom? No, Tom’s simply using his mutant power to lift up the whole wooden stage. Had he thought to rehearse it? Appparently he had not. Alison sighs. Once she headlined basketball arenas…

But the money’s good. And the sound in the enclosed part of the castle isn’t half bad. Wooden mannequins start to dance behind her and break into flower, thanks to Tom’s powers, as she launches into “Dazzle You All.”

It’s a twelve-song set (she does not miss the on-stage roller skating) and the sun sets in the west, and she’s facing west: it’s hard for her to see the wedding guests’ faces as the evening comes in, and so she really has no clue how they react, and she sings her heart out anyway by the end, but she’s tired—she’s not twenty any more—and she can feel the sweat getting into her leotard, the DAT feeding back, the stand-up drummer slightly offbeat.

Thankfully she doesn’t have to provide her own lightshow. What people who book her as Dazzler solo don’t understand is that her lights absorb music: when she puts her all into photonic energy, it literally uses up the sound waves, and nobody hears a thing. So she’s happy to do the whole set without powers. There are kinetic wood sculptures all around her if the kids need something to watch. She’s also got an outfit picked out: a spangly jacket, flared pants, net of jewels in her hair. She knew it could get cold.

Some of the bits of wood on the ground are standing up and dancing on their own. They’re toddling off to the stone stairs. They’re coming back with tiny wooden plates on top of their twigs. They’re…. delivering cookies. Sparkly shiny sugar cookies in the shape of stars, to celebrate her appearance. She could get used to that. (No munching for her till after the gig.)

She did learn one cover especially for this event, a Stars of Heaven tune called “Unfinished Dreaming,” and she belts through that one, about a vexed lovers’ reunion, properly Irish for Black Tom, but he may not even recognize it; maybe nobody does. Surely Jonothan would. But it’s not like Jonothan’s there. She wishes she were in a studio, maybe with him. She’s tired. Tired of playing for money, tired of hoping for a break, tired of wanting to be one thing when she’s better at another: she half expects a couple of Sentinels to fall out of the sun as it sets, so she can show her worth in a superhero fight. 

But she’s a professional. Not a professional secret agent (not now anyway), not a professional superhero: a professional pop singer, who gives it her all at each gig. So she stares into the light and goes on.

Alison introduces the next-to-last number: “We did this one when I was with Lightbringr.” It’s one of those anthems where the chorus comes first. “This is for the one who, this is why I left you, this is how you knocked me down.”

By the end of that song, it’s twilight, and she can see their faces. Amanda. Stephen. A couple of people who could be baseline humans, whom she doesn’t recognize. Tom’s friends? Moira, somewhat amused (she mostly listens to orchestra music and troubadour songs). Ororo. Black Tom, in the corner, leaning on his shillelagh, orchestrating the cookie delivery, the kinetic sculptures, the chairs, the wooden stage. Kids—are they kids? they’re quite short—munching on those sparkly eight-pointed-star cookies. 

And, at his side, Black Tom’s soon-to-be-husband, the biggest man there, Cain Marko himself, the Juggernaut, bursting out of his brown tie and tails, staring up at the face of his favorite pop star, eyes shining, whispering—Alison realizes—everything she’s singing back to her, even the lyrics from “Shine Again” and “Seen It All.”

Cain Marko’s favorite pop star in the whole world, his favorite since he first broke out of jail, has made a surprise appearance at his wedding, and he couldn’t be happier. And, in that moment, Dazzler knows why she came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after Dazzler: X-Song and after X-Men Gold #30, and either before, or long, long after, Disassembled.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s well dark before the ceremony starts. Cain just stands at the front of the rows of chairs, holding a roll of paper flowers wrapped in shiny ornamental paper; Terry walks Tom down the aisle. All is forgiven. Alison, smiling, has taken her reserved seat. (She’ll settle up for money with Black Tom later.)

The groom and the groom speak, whispering to one another—it’s odd to see somebody that big and tall whispering, but of course it’s what lovers sometimes do; at last they can do it in public, and yet it’s still private.

They’ve written vows. Long ones. Even after all the world tours, all the exposure to so many sorts of English, Alison find Black Tom’s accent hard to make out, unless he’s speaking directly to her. As for Cain, he’s not exactly the world’s most eloquent writer, and he does go on, but he means it. Alison—not exactly a close family friend—finds herself tuning out, tuning in: “stuck by you and will stick by you…. most important to my life and always have been… pull any heist, and catch any bad guy, or good guy, whatever you need, Tom… jump into the sea to save you …” That one, she knows, isn’t just a figure of speech. Storm, behind her, nods. Her eyes are half-closed and all white: she’s been using her powers all day to bring a fully sunny day to the Mayo coast. 

Cain’s wrapping up. “And in you, Tom, I know I’ve finally found the one man who can move me. Even when I don’t want to be moved.”

The lattice of wood behind them nods, bows, straightens itself up, and breaks into fresh flower, to show Tom is moved too.

Will the wedding be formal, official, legally valid? or just an exchange of vows? Legal weddings, whatever the genders of the people who get married, require officiants, or so Dazzler (no lawyer) thinks. Surely the guest musician isn’t expected to officiate? She did perform a wedding, once, for two of her biggest fans; she’s an ordained minister of the church of universal something-or-other, but that might not work in the Republic of Ireland, and anyway she’d charge Tom extra for that. No she wouldn’t: Cain loves her music so. Yes she would: Cain’s been on the other side in a superhero fight. Yes she would. No she wouldn’t. Pay attention, Alison. It’s not about you.

So who could it be about? No one’s standing near the grooms, no one…. Oh.

Two, no, three boys, no, young men, no, small adult humans, no… .they’re leprechauns have crept out of the shadows between Cain and Tom. One of them takes off his hat and flexes his mustache and asks Tom “Do you, as the holder of Cassidy Keep, Black Tom Cassidy, take this man, this man-mountain, Cain Marko, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, until the end of all things?”

Tom nods. The leprechaun changes places with another leprechaun. Their belt buckles shine. “Do you, reformed supervillain Cain Marko, the Juggernaut, late bearer of the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, take this mutant, this mustache-man, Black Tom Cassidy, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, until the end of all things?”

Leprechaun vows are weird. Maybe they’re like ship captains: they can marry you legally as long as you’re on their ancestral terrain.

“I do,” says Black Tom. “I do,” says the Juggernaut.

“By the powers invested in me by the genius loci of Cassidy Keep, by the faerie folk and the good wee powers of Mayo and all Connaught, and by the legal authority of the Republic Ireland, I now pronounce you husband and husband,” one leprechaun says.

“You forgot the ring,” says another.

“Aye. Here it is,” a third leprechaun pops up from a cluster of moss and shadows to exclaim. The third leprechaun, dressed in dun and lace and with tiny feathers all over his hat, hands Tom a ring, and Cain another ring.

Cain hands Tom the ring, which fits easily onto Tom’s finger. (Alison wonders if Tom literally has a green thumb.)

Tom hands Cain the other ring, which…. does not. It really doesn’t. It’s big enough to fit Cain’s enormous ring finger, and more than big enough to fit his little finger—they try that next--- but something’s keeping it away. Like a force field. Like Sue Storm’s force fields, or maybe Unus the Untouchable, Alison thinks. She’s read about that dude. Or like Skids. Whatever happened to Skids?

Dr. Strange, from the second row, speaks up. “I believe a jealous god here,” he says. “Or someone who thinks he’s a god.”

“But the ring’s made of wood,” Tom says. “I made it meself. It’s been made with love! It should flex to fit my man’s hand.” He’s really upset.

“It’s not about love,” Stephen says. “It’s about jealousy. Cyttorak doesn’t want to share Cain with you.”

“True gods know how to share,” Ororo says. “But Cyttorak is no true god!”

“He ain’t,” Cain agrees. “I know the guy. He’s real jealous. But he still shouldn’t have trouble with me an’ Tom. It’s not like we haven’t been together for years.”

Tom smiles. There was a time when Cain would never have admitted such a thing. Not in front of superheroes, anyway.

Stephen and Clea both chant some incantations. Stephen waves his fingers in the air. Tom tries to apply the ring. Nothing: it’s like trying to put a horseshoe on a flat rock. The ring just stops in midair.

“Cyttorak simply does not want the ceremony to take place that means he will share you,” Strange says. “And only a god can stop a god, in this case. Or an agent of a god.”

“An agent?” Logan says. “You mean a worshipper. A devotee. It’s like when we fought Dracula. Only a Christian could use a cross against him, and only Kitty could use a Jewish star.”

What is Logan doing at Cain’s wedding? Alison wonders, and then she remembers: he gets to be everywhere. It’s probably his secondary mutation.

“I just want to be married to my man,” Cain says. “It’s always so hard. I never asked for this stuff.”

Black Tom puts his hand on Cain’s hand, sans ring, and stares out at the guests, the lawn, the few empty chairs. 

“I worship my God,” says Kurt, standing up in the third row of seats. “I believe in the Son, the Father and the Holy Ghost, who have power to bless all loving unions.” Then he bows. “Perhaps I may be of assistance here?”

“To fight the unholy, find holiness,” Storm says quietly. Clea nods. Strange agrees.

Kurt bamfs to the dais and takes the ring from the leprechaun. “Love is love,” he says, “and marriage, for those who want it, may sanctify love. May nothing stand in the way of this sacred union!” And then he recites, from memory. He might be translating, as he goes, from German; it’s not quite a version that Tom, who grew up Catholic, has heard before.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, if I have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, and though I have all faith and can move mountains, if I have not love, I am nothing.

“Love suffers and is kind; love does not envy, love does not vaunt itself up…. Love does not rejoice in injustice; rather, love rejoices in the truth.”

And then Kurt gives the wooden ring to Tom, who places it cleanly around Cain’s ring finger, and then slides it down till it meets the palm of Cain’s hand.


	4. Chapter 4

The lucky couple are out there for the first dance. When he’s with Tom Cain looks… Kurt admits it…. graceful. Massive, like the Hulk, of course. But graceful. (And of course he’s got no helmet on, so if anything went wrong, there are telepaths here… no, Kurt, don’t think like that. He’s a good guy now.)

If it were up to Cain alone, would he have picked one of Alison’s slow numbers for the first dance? Maybe. But it’s “My Funny Valentine,” a version Kurt doesn’t recognize, an odd one, with flageolets and maybe a harp. Then there’s something else, another slow number. “Out of somewhere I have something I have never heard, and sad is happy, that’s all I see, the light in the piazza…”

That sounds like a new musical? Do Tom and Cain hang out in London—that’s where Tom lives most of the year now—and go over old bank heists and talk about musicals? Does Tom, with his ill-gotten gains safe in Zurich or somewhere, bankroll the West End? That would explain a lot.

Kurt wonders whether he’ll ever belong with anyone as thoroughly as Tom belongs with Cain, as Julio belongs with Shatterstar, as Scott belonged (he admits it now) with Emma, as Jean-Paul belongs with Kyle, as Kitty belongs… Some questions have more than one answer. 

Kurt has certainly dated. Almost all women. He’s run the experiment the other way too, though. Why would you not run experiments, given the chance? But he disliked the feel of the beard on his cheek, and couldn’t get into the bottom half enough to want to keep on going that way.

He remembers the flirting, the tension, the way things worked out with Meggan, who is happily back together with Brian. Brian’s put in a solo appearance today, showing up for his old teammate, while Meggan’s home with their kid. (What would Meggan be like at a wedding? Emotionally… something. How would she look?)

Kurt remembers dating Rachel, too. What were they thinking? They were friends. Rachel was…. likely conducting an experiment. Negative results are still results.

There are so many universes out there where Kurt and Amanda stay together. They were good for each other, certainly. Magical, you might say. (Amanda’s dancing with one of Tom’s friends.)

And there’s at least one universe where Kurt ends up with Wanda: impossible to imagine now, though any timeline that gave the multiverse Nocturne can’t be all bad. (It’s really too bad Nocturne can’t be here.)

Kurt’s glad he could help with the ceremony. But now they’re cutting the cake, and he feels out of place. He doesn’t know the grooms all that well, compared to (say) how well Moira or Charles or Brian does. Or Sage. (Where’s Sage? There’s Sage. In red shades, standing off to one side, presumably computing.)

And yet he accepted the invite, and flew to Ireland when he could have remained in New York. 

“Why are you here?” Sage asks.

“Don’t you know everything, Tessa?” Kurt says. He’s slightly tired, slightly out of sorts. He should dance with someone. Should he dance with her?

They begin dancing, there on the lawn in the keep. He’s practiced, chivalrous; she’s stiff, and wants to listen to what he says. But first she talks. “I know things,” she says, “but I don’t know how they feel. I’m not an empath. It’s almost the opposite: sometimes I don’t know how I feel, let alone how anyone else does. I store information. Facts. Words. 

“I came here for Cain, though. I was on New Excalibur with him.”

“I was on Excalibur,” Kurt says. “The first time around.” He misses it. The flirting, the close quarters, the respect. The dimension-hopping, even. Subsequent dimension-hopping experiences have been… let’s not go there.

“I know that,” Sage says, and dips him. “But why are you here? You’ve never been close to Cain, and you and Black Tom have never done anything but fight. And you’re not blood relatives. As far as I know.”

Kurt sways and boxes out and makes the appropriate step back. Is anyone else ballroom dancing? Does anybody else here know how? Black Tom himself does; apparently he’s taught Cain. Sort of. They get a wide berth. They only have eyes for each other.

“Unless Mystique,” Sage continues. “No. I would know.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “I hope I would know, fraulein. No, the entire Xavier School got the invites, and each of us who came had our own reasons. Ororo wanted to see them happy. She likes it when thieves reform. She’s also a kind of official representative from the team. And the weather.” He gestures towards the clear, inviting night sky.

“And you?” Sage wants to know. Sage always wants to know. She dips him again.

Kurt points to the pyramid of cupcakes, now smaller and messier than it used to be. Four, no, five, no, six small, bright blue Kurt-like figures stand all around them, each of them stuffing his face. One stands on the table beside the stack, waving his blue, pointed tail in the air like a happy puppy. Another teleports until he’s on top of the stack, then grabs another red cupcake and teleports back to the lawn.

There’s also a pyramid of champagne glasses. Another bamf has investigated them, and lies on his back, hiccupping quietly, teleporting up and down, up and down.

“Honestly, I love weddings,” Kurt admits. “I’m a big sap, liebchen. Tessa. You know that. I’d travel a long way to see true love.” Then he shrugs. “Also, those little ones—they love weddings. Well, wedding cakes. They love wedding cakes. And cupcakes. Who was I to say no?”

One of the bamfs alights on Kurt’s shoulder and looks, first Sage, then Nightcrawler in the eye.

Kurt says. “When you’re done with dessert, then we can go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The Light in the Piazza” is a real musical: https://youtu.be/VG0NKFgscFg. For Meggan and Brian's kid, see X-Men Gold Annual 1 (2017).


End file.
